Joan Tower is an American composer, pianist, conductor and teacher whose career has been closely connected with performers. She co-founded the Da Capo Chamber Players and served as the ensemble’s pianist, developing a practical knowledge of instrumental writing that informs her chamber and orchestral works. She joined Bard College’s faculty in 1972. In 1990 she became the first woman to receive the Grawemeyer Award in Music Composition, for Silver Ladders. Her orchestral work Made in America was commissioned by a consortium of sixty-five orchestras, and its Nashville Symphony recording received three Grammy Awards in 2008. Her catalog also includes the Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman and numerous concertos.